


postmortem communications

by androgynousmikewheeler



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Autistic Character, Ghost Troy, Nonbinary Abed Nadir, Other, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 08:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30136620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgynousmikewheeler/pseuds/androgynousmikewheeler
Summary: When Abed gets home, something horrific is waiting for them.
Relationships: Annie Edison & Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	postmortem communications

Abed walks a few steps into apartment 303, looks up from their bag, and freezes. Their keys drop from their hand. Their face goes slack. Their stomach tightens, burning at their guts.

Troy stands in the hall, gaunt and ashen. His shirt is torn, a bloodstain on the collar. His eyes, bright beneath an unfamiliar scar, light up at the sight of Abed. He smiles, that wide grin Abed can never forget.

He flickers through the sofa. A bullet hole weeps from his chest. He's clearly dead.

"No," Abed whispers, walking back out the door and slamming it behind them.

They sprint down the stairs, steps echoing in the empty stairwell, bursting out onto the sidewalk, weak wings beating worthless against the sudden wind. The ghost doesn't follow them.

As they catch their breath, they search the street, not even knowing what they're looking for. Whatever it is, they don't find it. Too shaken to drive and unwilling to face Troy's spectral face again, they sit down on the hot pavement. Patting their pockets, they realize they can't go back anyway. A locked door stands between them and their keys.

They watch the sun set over the mediocre city and wait for Annie to come home, to right the overturned nest.

The prodigal son returned, but with every worst fear realized rather than assuaged.

They try not to think about him.

They fail.

* * *

After about an hour of sitting on the front walk, Annie pulls into the apartment parking lot. As she sees Abed walking up to her car, she frowns.

"What's going on?"

Abed shakes their head. "I locked myself out," they murmur.

She exhales, the concern falling from her face. "Oh. You could have texted me. I've just been at the library."

Somehow, their words catch in their mouth, a frightened fledgling, unwilling or unable to fly out. "I could use the fresh air," they say, and it isn't quite a lie.

Annie shrugs. "I guess. Any plans for dinner?"

They shake their head, listening as she dives into her plans for the evening, dread pooling like oil in their stomach.

As Annie turns her key in the lock, Abed fights the urge to scream, to run, to close their eyes and hide from the wretched truth.

They follow her inside, and there he is. Troy sits in his armchair, leaving no fingerprints in the accumulated dust. He stands, rushing toward them, and Abed cannot help the cry that bubbles from their throat, dread singeing delicate feathers.

Annie whips towards them, startled, as Troy's arms pass right through her.

He falters, pulls back. "Annie," he says, voice distorted as if through water, "it's me. It's Troy."

Both watch in dawning horror as she asks, "What? What is it?" She looks around the apartment, looking for the figure right in front of her.

Abed can only stare as Troy's hand passes again through her shoulder. "Annie," he calls out in terror, "Annie, look at me. I'm here. Just look at me."

But she gives no sign of seeing him, feeling him, hearing him. "What do you see? Abed, what are you looking at?" She grips Abed's arm, calling their name in some attempt to tether them back to the ground.

Horror shackling their body, they can do nothing as Annie starts to panic, her voice high and reedy. Troy cries out in discordant harmony, the mortal terror of love caught just outside their reach. They sink to the floor, back pressed against the door, locked and unforgiving behind them.

Abed is frozen at the fork, at the end of each path a tragedy, desperately searching for a key, a chance to go back.

Either the one they love more than anything is dead, or his absence has simply driven them insane.

How horrid it is to wish oneself delusional.

* * *

Troy bawls at Annie, screaming in her ear to just look around again, to see him this time, to give him one last chance for all of this not to be what he thinks it is. For him to still be alive.

His voice feels no stress, no threat of hoarseness, but as Annie's panic fades, so does his hope. She can't see him because he isn't really there. He's stuck behind some cracked trans-dimensional lens, distorting the world and hiding him from her view.

But Abed can see him. They stare up at him, heartbreak clattering out from their eyes. It's almost worse than not being seen at all.

He turns his pleas to them. "Abed, I know you can see me. Talk to me. Please. You're my best friend."

They lock their eyes on him, not frightened or spacy but hawk-like in their focus. Ever so slightly, they shake their head.

"Abed, come on!" he yells, but he can hear the cage door slam, Abed locking themself deep in their own mind. The light goes out of them, autopilot taking control.

They'll listen when they choose to unlock the cage. Troy just hopes that they won't wither to nothing in there first.

* * *

When she has pleaded and begged and cried herself dry, Annie abandons hope of coaxing any reaction from Abed.

She pulls them to their feet. They follow, puppet-like, and she herds them through a silent meal, heating buttered noodles and mixing special drink. They eat robotically, quietly, joylessly. Their eyes flit oddly about the apartment, chasing something that isn't there.

When she asks for salt, they push it towards her. These are the only words they acknowledge from deep inside their own world.

When they finish, Abed's listless body wanders off into their room. She follows, watches them pull off their sneakers and crawl into their bunk bed fully clothed.

She flips off their light, closes their door, and sinks to the floor just outside of it. Worry beats at her temples with its unrelenting fists. They've gone nonverbal before, but it's never been like this. This isn't a lost show or missed social cues or overstimulation. This is heartbreak.

Through the door, she hears something she hasn't in the six years she's known them.

Abed is crying, sobs soft but unmistakeable, the mourning call of a pigeon, last of its kind.

Outside the door, three inches of wood and a horrible truth between them, Annie cries too, not knowing why.

Sorrow must not be understood to be shared.

In the morning, she calls Jeff.

Abed still lies quiet in their room, hopefully sleeping.

Her voice shakes when Jeff answers the phone. "Jeff," she murmurs, "there's something really wrong with Abed and I don't know what to do. I need your help." As she recounts their eerie coldness, her lips starts to wobble, but she refuses to cry.

Jeff can be there in an hour. She prays that there's something he can do.

**Author's Note:**

> my hundredth fic, baby!!!


End file.
